aze in my mind.

"For the whole town, I suddenly realised, was something other than I so
far saw it. The real activities and interests of the people were
elsewhere and otherwise than appeared. Their true lives lay somewhere
out of sight behind the scenes. Their busy-ness was but the outward
semblance that masked their actual purposes. They bought and sold, and
ate and drank, and walked about the streets, yet all the while the main
stream of their existence lay somewhere beyond my ken, underground, in
secret places. In the shops and at the stalls they did not care whether
I purchased their articles or not; at the inn, they were indifferent to
my staying or going; their life lay remote from my own, springing from
hidden, mysterious sources, coursing out of sight, unknown. It was all a
great elaborate pretence, assumed possibly for my benefit, or possibly
for purposes of their own. But the main current of their energies ran
elsewhere. I almost felt as an unwelcome foreign substance might be
expected to feel when it has found its way into the human system and the
whole body organises itself to eject it or to absorb it. The town was
doing this very thing to me.

"This bizarre notion presented itself forcibly to my mind as I walked
home to the inn, and I began busily to wonder wherein the true life of
this town could lie and what were the actual interests and activities of
its hidden life.

"And, now that my eyes were partly opened, I noticed other things too
that puzzled me, first of which, I think, was the extraordinary silence
of the whole place. Positively, the town was muffled. Although the
streets were paved with cobbles the people moved about silently, softly,
with padded feet, like cats. Nothing made noise. All was hushed,
subdued, muted. The very voices were quiet, low-pitched like purring.
Nothing clamorous, vehement or emphatic seemed able to live in the
drowsy atmosphere of soft dreaming that soothed this little hill-town
into its sleep. It was like the woman at the inn--an outward repose
screening intense inner activity and purpose.

"Yet there was no sign of lethargy or sluggishness anywhere about it.
The people were active and alert. Only a magical and uncanny softness
lay over them all like a spell."

Vezin passed his hand across his eyes for a moment as though the memory
had become very vivid. His voice had run off into a whisper so that we
heard the last part with difficulty. He was telling a true thing